Department of Surgery, 251 Hellenic Air Force Hospital, Arkadias 19-21, 115 26, Athens, Greece.
World J Surg. 2010 Aug;34(8):1793-804. doi: 10.1007/s00268-010-0580-7.
Thyroid diseases (mainly goiter) have been recognized for more than 3500 years. Knowledge of the nature of these diseases was, of course, limited at that time. Thyroid surgery was conceived by the ancients, but it was limited to rare attempts to remove part of an enlarged thyroid gland in cases of impending death by suffocation or, in very rare cases, of a suppurating thyroid. Like other fields of surgery, thyroid surgery was limited by many problems: the lack of anesthesia and antisepsis, the need for appropriate instruments, mainly artery forceps (many deaths after thyroid surgery were due to severe postoperative hemorrhage or infection). Much of the progress in thyroid surgery occurred in Europe during the second half of the 19th century. During the first half of the 20th century, the evolution of thyroid surgery accelerated significantly, based on the contributions of pioneering European and American surgeons. The present status of thyroid surgery was established during the last quarter of the 20th century, when modern imaging methods and technological advances (including progress in applied molecular biology) brought thyroid surgery into the new millennium.
甲状腺疾病（主要是甲状腺肿）已有 3500 多年的历史。当时，人们对这些疾病的性质的了解当然是有限的。古人就已经想到了甲状腺手术，但当时只限于在濒临窒息死亡的情况下，或在极少数化脓性甲状腺炎的情况下，尝试切除部分肿大的甲状腺，而且这种手术非常罕见。与其他外科领域一样，甲状腺手术也受到许多问题的限制：缺乏麻醉和消毒、需要合适的器械，主要是动脉夹（许多甲状腺手术后的死亡是由于严重的术后出血或感染）。19 世纪后半叶，甲状腺手术的许多进展发生在欧洲。20 世纪上半叶，基于欧洲和美国外科医生的开创性贡献，甲状腺手术的发展明显加快。20 世纪最后四分之一，随着现代影像学方法和技术进步（包括应用分子生物学的进步）的出现，甲状腺手术进入了新纪元，确立了其目前的地位。
